The Vanishing Nigerian Dailies and Quality News Reporting

The decline and the quality of fine journalism within the Nigerian press continues to amaze me. I have been wondering what happened to the Vanguard Group of Newspapers and its eloquent staff writers and columnists for nearly one week now that the paper has gone offline. The paper has shown no sign of coming back and my guess would be that, somehow, a management staff had forgotten to pay the bills, or maybe the owner(s) may have given up the idea of online publication to reduce cost. I think I really miss reading from the Vanguard, and perhaps that's why I'm perturbed for the fact that I am popping up this very topic twice in just two days. I must be feeling it--the urge to read from a daily I have been hooked up to for a while now.

The past couple of days, I have engaged in a series of discussion on why the Vanguard continues to disappear on the web and why the Guardian Newspapers continues to be offline and off the streets for a strike that could have been avoided if the management took its business seriously. According to the statement by Guardian, which was issued on November 6, 2007, the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the National Union of Printing, Publishing and Paper Products Workers (NUPPPPROW) withdrew its services to the company on the ground of not reaching a deal even though the Guardian group came half way to the two unions demand. The Guardian statement reads:

The Management of Guardian Newspapers Limited wishes to inform members of the public that our newspapers have been off the streets and online, following an industrial action called by our workers.

The two unions in our company - Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ), and the National Union of Printing, Publishing and Paper Products Workers (NUPPPPROW) - withdrew their services on Tuesday, November 6, 2007. Their grouse was that our company would not commit to award a 50 per cent raise on their gross pay. Mindful of the prevailing economic situation in the country in general, and the media industry in particular, we offered a more realistic pay increase to the workers. We also held several meetings with the unions, with a view to reaching an agreement on the issue. But the unions rejected our offer outright and stuck to their demand.

We thank our readers and advertisers both in print and online, and the general public for their understanding, and ask that they bear with us over the prevailing situation.

Nowadays that the two major newspapers are offline, I rely on other newslinks and I'm not quite sure if I'm getting the real deal when it comes to quality news reporting. I have tried to avoid all the tabloids, notably the Daily Sun and other sensationalized newslinks that have no clue the importance of keeping up with news in today's journalistic world. The Port Harcourt-based Tide has its news done for four or five days in a week, then remains the same until it pops up the next couple of days with fresh news stories. The Tide Could care less about damage report. It vanishes whenever it feels like and pops up anytime it deems necessary. I'm quite sure not too many read online from this tabloid. I wonder how they are able to stay in business with fierce competition out there. Nevertheless, it hasn't stopped me from doing the news on my blog-related News Desk which is part of keeping up and updating readers who visit and comb my blog.

The Port Harcourt Telegraph is another big joke. Its Garden City and Riverine-related news could be ten days old and nobody cares. Maybe, some oil baron should buy it out, though some of its lousy journalist who have been overstating its circulation may land on their feet and the paper could rejuvenate for fine newspaper reporting, changing the paper's content. In the newspaper business, it takes quality journalism work to thrive, like the Guardian has done over the years. With the Guardian on strike, its quality journalism work is definitely over. Now after a week and no news, who is going to be interested when there are many other news sources that can produce the same quality work the Guardian had been giving us all these years?

From a brief survey that I conducted regarding the Guardian, almost 85 percent of the readers I surveyed were satisfied with the Guardian and its quality work. That number fell dramatically as of yesterday when I carried out the same survey. Guardian just lost it and perhaps that's how it goes in the newspaper business.

The Punch, Daily Champion,, This Day, Daily Trust and Daily Independent tastes the same save for the Nigerian Tribune which is ngbati-ngabti , noise-making in nature as it has been since Obafemi Awolowo set its tone in the 50s for the interest of Egbe Omo Oduduwa, descendants of Oduduwa. By the way, the Daily Independent was gone for a while and it's now back. It has lost its base and Guardian is likely to fall within that category from an avoidable strike nobody wants to reach a deal.

Who knows? The newly Abuja-based Leadership Nigeria Newspaper whose motto states "For God And Country" may take over from the Guardian in quality news reporting. I doubt it. We'll see!